Justice is blind
by Sapphire's Ink
Summary: God blinds Lucifer and casts him out. Lucifer adjusts.
1. Prologue

Casting Lucifer out was in an effort to prevent a war as Angels would be forced to choose sides between their parent and their sibling.

Not killing him was a luxury he only reserved because the Goddess of All Creation begged it so.

Removing his gifts _and_ casting him into Hell for all eternity was cruel.

~?~

Over the centuries, Lucifer had learned to deal with his blindness.

(He never liked it.

People called him the Prince of Darkness, he who cloaks himself in shadows, without acknowledging the dissonance. His name literally meant light-bringer; he'd always been comforted by the sight of the stars and the sunsets he saw when he went down to Earth. The hours before dawn were excruciating, and he often came back to Heaven before the sunsets were over, only to come back for the warmth of a sunrise, watching the light shine over everything again and making everything seem reborn.

But the explosions of colour across the skies brought by Chroma and the clouds, lit orange and gold by the last rays of day from his own stars were beautiful beyond belief. The deep blue turning to midnight blue turning to aquamarine, then pink, purple, blue, gold, orange- sunrises were indescribable.

He could sense warmth, and in fact used a mix of seismic imaging, sonar, and thermal imaging to see, but there was nothing that could compare to the feeling of sunlight on his skin, across his feathers, as he flew.

He could hardly fly anymore, either. That bothered him more than it should have. Thermal imaging didn't always account for the little bugs, and the air currents often interfered. It was hard.)

Maze told him the scar across his nose, splitting his eyes, was distinguished, and that she liked it.

He often covered himself with a silk scarf either way, because at least then, he could pretend he was staying blind of his own volition.

~?~

People liked telling him things, things they didn't often tell other people.

Despite not having eyes, that was something he'd been able to work around. He could sense, through his three techniques for 'sight', where the eyes of human were. Staring into them wasn't so difficult.

As long as the other human could see and would stare into where they assumed his own eyes were, he was alright.

(That didn't happen while he still had his sight. 'What do you truly desire' wasn't a necessary trigger phrase before his blindness; they just told him because they got the sense that's what he wanted.

He didn't have to look in their eyes for it, either. He just had to look at them, and through force of capitulation, they told him. Always.

Not anymore. His gifts had been reduced.)

William Shakespeare, grateful for a muse and a sexual partner, taught him how to read things that weren't engraved. By heating the page just enough so the ink would light up but not enough that it would melt off the page was good, and, immensely grateful to the writer, Lucifer not only gave him inspiration for the next six of his plays, but also sucked him off while he was writing them.

(The ink blots and crossed-out words and paragraphs and sentences and shaky handwriting on the original copies and drafts (especially the drafts) was_ not_ to be questioned, thank you very much.)

~?~

Mozart taught him how to play the piano, and by this point, he was relying on humans as his main source of entertainment and knowledge. Aside from Maze, of course. She was one of the few demons that wasn't dull as a rock.

Mozart composed even after he turned deaf. That was because Lucifer was capable of hearing notes just as well as he could predict their harmony, and occasionally made notes.

Of course, they liked having sex together too. Lucifer was energetic, with an inclination to burn off energy and anger on unsuspecting humans that tend to feature prominently in history, and Mozart wasn't picky.

~?~

He supposed Dad was laughing at him in Heaven.

Walking everywhere or taking the bus wasn't something he would have done under any other circumstance. He served as a good token minority for everyone else, he supposed: Hey, look at the blind, pan guy in charge of a nightclub!

Joke's on you.

He could do things just as well as a seeing person. He just couldn't see things like everyone else could.

(But Dad help him, what he wouldn't give to see colour again.)

~?~

All of the clothing in his wardrobe was relatively simple, and all the same colour and fabric: black and cotton, save for a handful midnight-blue shirts of cotton-polyester (one of which was small enough to make you feel sorry for the buttons whenever he flexed or just _moved_), and one silk near-black dark purple t-shirt that showed off his muscles and made females drool on his shoulder. All his pants were black and cotton, and his shoes were black dress shoes or white running shoes.

(It absorbed the heat of sunlight_ so_ much better.)

The scarf over his eyes never felt era appropriate, but with all the street performers... He could almost breathe easy.


	2. Rightful concern

Chloe Decker didn't know how much they could rely on the testimony of a blind man and his seeing-eye woman (he called her his seeing-eye demon), one of which wasn't paying that much attention to anything other than making sure the bullets couldn't kill him, and the other who was blind, but she kept his testimony either way.

Meeting the man with the black bandana with red detailing at the victim's boyfriend's home had been a shock.

"I've already gotten all the information out of him that he knows, Detective," the blind man sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose under the tightly tied scarf.

The blonde shrugs and takes all the information the brunet (Lucifer) has.

~?~

The two start working together more and more.

Lucifer could work with paperwork, and could even read it without Mazikeen (she hated being called anything other than Maze if she liked you, but if she didn't no nicknames for you) or braille, so she assumed the scarf was see-through and he wasn't actually blind, until a perp with a knife got too close and his scarf was shredded (but not his skin, which she found a bit weird) and was absolutely shocked at the sight.

Lucifer caught the scraps and tried to hide his scar again, but Chloe lowered his hands a bit, to which he capitulated, focused on her touch. (It was warm.) A jagged, silvery scar stretched across his face, through his eyes. He opened his eyelids (there was a hesitation she hadn't ever seen from him) and sighed at the darkness that greeted him, and looked down at Chloe, who was nearly in tears at the sight of Lucifer's eyes. Otherwise a deep brown, near black, the scar stretched through his eyes too, forcing his eyes into a lighter version of what it should be.

"Lucifer..." Chloe said, touching the side of his eye. The Archangel flinched away, fidgeting with his torn scarf. The blonde whispered and gently led him away, low enough for no one to hear around the multitude of sounds.

They didn't speak until they got back to Lux.

"Why do you... Hide your scar?"

He nearly couldn't answer around the tightness of his throat. It had been a long time since he'd concentrated on his blindness. (His last image had been God wielding the Sword of Flame slashing swiping through his face - he wished it had been a sunrise.) His knees curled up to his chest. "I miss colours."

Chloe sat beside him. (Her presence almost felt like Amenadiel, when he wrapped a wing around him in an effort to comfort him, and he felt as though newly formed again and-) He sobbed. "My F-father, He- He knew I loved sunrises more than anything, so He was sure I could never see one again."

Chloe made a noise like a wounded dog in the back of her throat, and put an arm around his waist.

(It was more affection than he'd been shown in a long, long time. He leaned into her.)

~?~

Lucifer was back at work the next day, wearing a black and blue scarf around his head this time.

He acted the same as always; teasing Dan, acting superior, traumatising the suspected bad guys in interrogation (he liked calling it T&I for reasons no one knew).

Chloe walked on eggshells around him for a while, but calmed and they soon had a new definition of normal.

(He teased her. She engaged in their unique form of verbal sparring.

They loved it.)

~?~

His Devil Eyes were always visible through his scarf. It was a natural response to extreme anger, often involuntary, but he could also control it. It was like the difference between muscle memory and consciously flexing a muscle.

It was often believed to be a trick of the eyes, imagination. Not to the ones who knew better, though.

Chloe was not that unobservant.

Dan was not that stupid.

Ella was not that ignorant.

Ella had never seen his eyes (assumed it was all part of his act of being the Devil, always portrayed as blind), but respected his choice and left the scarf where it was.

Dan was his soulmate-but-for-hating, and neither man was rather opposed to that fact. He could hardly hate him, though, when he was sent to the hospital when he'd been shot down during a case and they had to take off his scarf to put on the breathing mask, revealing the deep, disfiguring scar.

Ella's hands shot up to cover her face. Chloe climbed into the ambulance, and her two companions followed her.

~?~

Lucifer was stable, but still unconscious. Ella fell asleep a lot around him because she stayed after visiting hours with a police permit. None of the hospital staff dared ask Maze to leave as she sharpened her knives and swords and axes- those of Earth origin; Demon blades forged in Hell didn't need sharpening. Dan read from his phone, but kept by his side anyways, because no one could bear to leave the self-proclaimed Devil after seeing that scar.

Chloe often fell asleep on his chest, careful of the IV tubes and monitors.

Lucifer woke up without any of them there. He, when waking up without the scarf, often forgot why he was blind, and so he panicked.

His heart monitor went insane and he tore out the things inside and on his body, using his exceptional strength to raze the staff and keep them away from him.

This continued until he was outside and felt the sun's warmth, and finally remembered why he was blind.

(_Oh. I need a new scarf. Where's my old one?_)

A breeze passed by him.

(_And where are my trousers?_)

~?~

Lucifer Morningstar has four people on his Emergency Contact list. Mazikeen Smith, Chloe Decker, Daniel Espinoza, and Ella Lopez.

So when he'd knocked out all the hospital security and escaped without filing the discharge papers, those four were contacted immediately.

(They all knew him well enough that they went up to his penthouse immediately, and found him reading _Hamlet_ with another new scarf over his eyes, with all the original ink blots and random scribbles and rips in the paper and crossed-out odes to oral sex, smirking.)


	3. Mom

**Damn! I was not expecting such a warm reception to this story!**

* * *

Meeting Trixie was an inevitability.

Obviously warned by her mother or Maze beforehand, she skirted around the issue of his sight.

She didn't ask about his scarf, either.

But having fallen asleep beside her, he still jumped and nearly threw her across the room when little hands reached for the knot at the back of his head. "Don't touch, please."

The girl capitulated without another question.

~?~

Amenadiel was long used to Lucifer's antics. Nothing could slow him down.

Sometimes, he wished his time-slowing worked on other Celestial beings.

(Other times, like when Linda needed rescuing, he was more happy than he could describe.)

But as his time-slowing abilities faded and his wings turned black, he found fear.

("Father why are you punishing me?" _No answer._)

(Was this how Lucifer felt? It had to be a higher extent, didn't it?)

Amenadiel, for the first time in millennia, understood Lucifer's hatred. It was disconcerting, losing a sense of time.

~?~

The Goddess of All Creation was not one to be trifled with, even when contained in a measly human flesh sac.

Everything felt somewhat dull.

So she distracted herself. Doing nothing since the times of ancient Egypt was boring, and she was looking for something fun to do.

(Earth was boring. The light didn't shine as brightly here as it did in the Silver City, and as her powers returned in trickles, she lusted for it more than ever.)

(Amenadiel longed for it too.)

(Lucifer didn't want anything Heaven could offer him. Conforming like a good little robot had never been his style, and he'd always preferred the light of the Earth. His siblings had never been abused to the extent that he had - none of them could relate, and few offered sympathy.

If only he could still see sunrises.)

~?~

His colleagues liked doing things for him since they found out about his very real blindness, and not the acting schtick.

(It took him quite a while to notice, because people liked doing things for him anyways.)

Ella got him coffee, Chloe did his paperwork, Dan brought him food.

They all drove him places.

(He liked having the hood down on his car; the wind rushing through his hair felt a bit like what it was like to fly, and he'd sorely missed it for a long, long time now.

Sometimes he missed his wings.)

~?~

The more Dan found out about Lucifer's childhood through Chloe, the more he understood how Lucifer turned out the way he had. (He understood how Lucifer never commented about how Dan was a bad father- he had experience with those kinds of fathers, and Dan wasn't one of them.)

The cut through his eyes was deep and deliberate. Silvery, like it had already been healed for years. But hints of the angry red, jagged skin under the bandana were very apparent. (Seeing it made his fists clench. How could someone do that to him?

Lucifer was an asshole, yes, but often skirted around things he was uncomfortable with. Most of the things he made mistakes with were genuine talent for lack of social graces, and genuine questions were normal, as horrible as those questions may be. Seeking out someone with experience to help him.)

If Dan ever met Morningstar Sr, one of them would get a bloody nose, and it wasn't going to be him.

~?~

Lucifer's talent for sex was never more apparent than on a case where two of his sexual partners were victims and they had to interview everyone who had sex with him in the past six months.

(Ella stopped counting them after fifty-seven.)

For a blind man, you could swear by his sight. None of them were below average intelligence (in fact, a lot of them were noncommittally tracing quadratic equations and solving them without calculators, and often solving the equations of other people) or unused to orgies, homoerotic tendencies, and were all ridiculously up for it. Like, they could jump in anyone's bed without a second thought and keep going for a ridiculous amount of time.

And that gasoline thing was a bit weird, but meh. She'd heard weirder things in interrogation.

~?~

There were assassins coming after Lucifer. None of his friends dared abandon him, so he chose to stay with Ella.

(Dan shrugged it off; their soulmates-but-for-hating thing wasn't affected by Dan's knowledge of his child abuse. It offered an explanation, and he probably had a right to act how he did, but didn't erase the sting. Plus, when he started to be a bit nicer to him, Lucifer was just as prickly as ever and demanded to know why he was acting so weird.

Chloe was more hurt by it, but seeing as Trixie was staying with her and Ella had weapons stashed all over her house, she understood it.)

The murderer was quickly caught, but picking on a blind man was falling below so many standards.

(Lucifer didn't comment when Chloe, Maze, and Trixie moved into his spare rooms. It was rather nice devolving into cuddle piles on the couch, looking after a sleeping Trixie and watching My Little Pony.

He hardly got Trixie back to her rooms when she fell asleep on him, either. The comfortable warmth against his side never felt right as it cooled.)

~?~

Lucifer was the epitome of stable, considering his background.

Comparing him to another functionally normal human was impossible, because he wasn't functionally normal, not the least because he was violently turned blind.

He'd been mistreated and cheated out of the childhood he'd needed. A stable family would have been good for him, but that's just not what he'd gotten.

(A severely abusive father, a neglectful and distant mother, uncaring children more preoccupied with keeping their responsibilities- it was no wonder one of them lashed out.)

(It was a minor miracle Amenadiel was as stable as he was.)

Kicking the Goddess of All Creation off of Earth was a good decision. She was going to explode after some time or another, and letting her form her own galaxy was the best thing for everyone involved.

(He kept Azarael's Blade and the Medallion of Life. They embodied and wielded life and death; what would happen to those forces without those objects?)

(He hid the Blade and the Medallion together. The Medallion cancelled out the call of the Blade.)

~?~

"Or how about we get a very large stick and boke the bear as hard as we can?" Lucifer suggested.

"How do you mean?" Chloe asked.

"He obviously has a very large ego, doesn't he, comparing himself to the likes of Johnny Kane and Dr Scott. If we challenge that ego, believe me, he'll respond."

"How do you know that?" Dan asked.

(_"Father, we don't need to be perfect for you to love us! You allow imperfection among humans, but your children must be infallible? It's unfair of you to treat us as if we were nothing but objects to be used every time the same way, as perfect as the last time!"_) "I once lived with someone with an ego of that size. Called him Dad."

"Yeah, and he cut through your eyes. There has to be a better way."

"But there isn't one, Chloe! Challenging his ego will at least provoke a response! Anything else, he'll at the least ignore you, or at the most, be indifferent toward your actions!"

"He's not your father!" Dan riposted.

"No, but they act the same! You wouldn't believe how many of us got killed in his petty wars against Millianna!"

"Who is Millianna?!"

(Chloe had already sent the e-mail.

Dan and Lucifer kept fighting.)

~?~

Maze was good enough to capitulate when Lucifer asked her to get a good bottle of wine out. His reading technique worked on bottles, sure, but it also heated the liquid, and warm wine often wasn't good. Whenever he selected a bottle that he could read without the liquid tasting like crap, however, he always was sure to pour her a drink.

Coconut water and orange juice lay next to his wine selection now, and he couldn't bring himself to be mad. Cold orange juice tasted like ice.

~?~

Chloe spent about a week in bed recovering from her poisoning debacle. It was actually meant to be something closer to a month, but Chloe was more stubborn than a bull.

Lucifer did most of the work on their next cases so she would relax. (Anything for his Clutch.)

~?~

Killing Cain wasn't hard. After all, no matter that he'd been trying to kill himself since the Bronze Age, he'd never tried with Azarael's Blade.

(He would be dead, once and for all. No Heaven, and no Hell. Nonexistence was a mercy for him. Perhaps he should have cut through the Gates and deposited him in Hell.)

He didn't deserve a grave. His body was tossed into the nearest forest to be eaten by wolves.

His wings unfurled again. Having cut them off six times already, the blind man just sighed and folded them against his back.

(Will you let me see a sunrise now, Dad? I did what you asked, didn't I?)


	4. Liar, Liar! (Unfortunately not)

Finding Lucifer and Trixie asleep together (as in, Trixie asleep on Lucifer's chest and curled against one of his arms) on the couch in front of a frozen TV asking if they wanted to keep watching _Sherlock_ wasn't so uncommon. Like the loving mother she was, Chloe draped a blanket over Trixie to her shoulders, which covered up to Lucifer's midsection. Trixie hummed and cuddled her guardian's arm tighter.

Chloe went back to her room and settled down for sleep.

Trixie woke her up early in the morning complaining about Lucifer's nightmare, so she went to comfort him, only to find him drinking scotch out of the bottle like there was no tomorrow.

"Lucifer?"

"... Chloe. What colour is this drink?"

"It's brown," she replied.

The brunet growled and threw the glass at the nearest wall, letting the glass explode in a showed of glass and alcohol. Chloe yelped and Lucifer flinched. "I'll clean that up," he muttered. A standing rule in their home; if you made a mess, you had to clean it up yourself. "Have sunrises changed at all?"

She looked out the window; the sun was just over the horizon, and the sky was slowly getting lighter. "I don't understand."

"Temperatures have changed a lot in the millennia I've been on Earth. It affects quite a bit about the atmosphere. I was wondering if that affected the sunrises."

Chloe slowly approached him and poured herself a glass. (_"He knew I loved sunrises more than anything, so He was sure I could never see one again."_) "How do you remember them?"

The brunet almost smiled. "Chroma painting colours across the sky. Shades of blue, pink, red, orange, gold, green, purple, and the clouds emphasizing the rising light."

Chloe downed the glass and licked her lips. (_"- He was sure I could never see one again."_) "They haven't changed."

Lucifer really did smile this time. "I can't describe how much that makes me happy."

Chloe put her head against Lucifer's arm. "What was your nightmare about?"

It took a while for him to answer. "My father wielding the Sword of Eternal Fire and dragging it through my eyes. It was my last image."

Maze, who'd long been sitting on the railing upstairs with a vodka bottle, downed half of it in one chug.

(She'd long been there for Lucifer about his nightmares. The first few centuries were the worst, and he had nightmares about it every night. Maze was the only one he talked to about it, and he took her under her wing to teach her torture.)

"Maze, if you drop my alcohol, you have to clean it up yourself," Lucifer warned, because Maze rarely heeded that particular rule.

"Mm-hmm. Got it, boss-captain-person," Maze slurred.

"Alright, you're too drunk to be coherent. Come down this instant."

She did, and dropped the bottle. She made moves to clean it up, but Lucifer caught her arm and dragged her to the couch, draping the blanket over her. She quickly fell asleep. "You can clean that up later," the devil promised. "Not now, you'd probably try to eat the glass."

Lucifer walked up to his room and quickly fell asleep between the Egyptian silk.

Chloe smiled at Maze's sleeping form and brushed a lock of her hair away from her mouth. She darted a glance at Lucifer, and noted how he hadn't taken off his bandana, either.

(She knew better. She left it alone.)

~?~

_"You've hurt so many people, Mum! It has to stop!"_

_Lucifer was wielding the sword that had caused him so much trouble in the past._

_(It felt sick in his hands. He felt sick holding it. **Get it away from me, please, Mommy, please!**)_

The incredible heat felt like a newly lit star. (He hadn't lit any in millennia.)

He downed the Hellwine he'd been saving for a special occasion. (This was the good stuff, the kind that would actually, really get him intoxicated.)

Maze was sharing his bottle.

They'd gotten addicted to the taste of Earth's alcohol, but it wouldn't get them drunk, ever. The Hellwine would kill a human, but to Celestials, it was more the effect of vodka.

(Rather poetic, he thought. Mum called for his banishment instead of evisceration (God hadn't held up his end of the bargain and chose to cut through his gifts too), and Lucifer had done the same by giving Mum her own universe.

Let her be the Goddess of her own creation, without Father.

He wished he'd been given that luxury. "Let there be Light," indeed.)

(Trixie watched, sipping on a coconut water, as Lucifer got less and less reasonable, and his voice got more and more slurred. Maze said they were getting drunk for once in a human's lifetime and that she could watch as long as she didn't touch the bottle, or the drinks that were poured from the bottle.)

(Chloe heard his nightmares that night, and ran out of her room to find him clawing at his back hard enough to bleed. _"They won't come off, Detective, please help me get them off!__"_)

(Maze explained the morning afterward, but didn't believe her until Maze showed Chloe her Demon Face. The blonde froze for a solid minute, but shook it off and asked her where his wings were.

"On his back. Where else?")

~?~

No one spoke of Marcus Pierce for long after his death. He'd been new to their precinct, and no one really knew him.

Elle prayed for him, but they'd met before. And she liked praying. Prayer was good.

Everyone very quickly moved on.

~?~

Lucifer couldn't fly without sight or some sense where he was going. Thinking he was a flying angel was foolhardy. He hadn't flown in so long, he'd forgotten how.

(Falling without a sense of how to stop tended to do that.)

~?~

There were still some who doubted Lucifer's blindness, or how far he would go to protect those close to him.

The picture Dan had taken on his phone of the disgusting scar across his nose and through his eyes, reaching his cheekbones, assuaged the first question.

When told by a perp that they had gunmen on Chloe, Dan, Trixie, Ella, and Maze, and that he would order the shoot unless given the order to stop (which was only going to happen if Lucifer killed himself) in a code phrase only he knew, the millennia-old Devil picked up a nearby sword and drove it into him, a violent spray of blood hitting the sword, travelling between the cracks I the sword.

A pool of blood grew on the floor.

(The assassin called off the gunmen, and Lucifer didn't hesitate to remove the sword and decapitate the asshole who dared put his precious people in danger. He then passed out from blood loss and was rushed to a hospital.

No one dared question him again after seeing that security footage. Especially not in front of Lopez, Decker, Espinoza, and their kid, the latter of which slept on his arm whenever seen at night times in the hospital and the scary knife lady was next to him, sharpening her steel weapons.)

(Lucifer appreciated that a small amount. Being Seen was always a disconcerting experience for him, but having it confirm that he never lied was somewhat gratifying.

He still put the bandana back on when he woke up.

He hated the darkness. But he could choose to leave the bandana on, and maybe he could fool himself into thinking he wanted it to be there.

Never.)


	5. Clutch

Charlotte and Dan were living happily together now. Charlotte was ridiculously happy, all smiley all the time: smiling at Dan, at her bracelet, at her coffee, at her case files, at her waffles; she smiled a lot. Her heat signature was far happier than he'd ever felt it.

(It made his heart twinge a little when he realized that such an easily-decipherable expression from that body was foreign to him despite his mother inhabiting it for several months: pure joy was never something Mum expressed well. It was always a cloak and dagger to hide what was really going on. She was never truly happy with him or Amenadiel.)

Lucifer was invited to the wedding, if only because his not-so-terrible romantic advice towards either Dan or Charlotte that was actually useful every now and again. But Charlotte attested it was because she couldn't remember being his stepmother, and wanted to get closer to him.

Lucifer shrugged and said her and his father had divorced since then, the marriage only lasting a few weeks. Lucifer wasn't that eager to see Him again, but perhaps he and Charlotte could have a better relationship.

(No, Dan wasn't his step-dad. Sometimes he liked imagining how Dan would have reacted at the prospect of rebellion, though. Certainly better than his own father. Dan didn't seem capable of mutilation, banishment, and psychological torture, especially towards his own daughter.)

~?~

Lucifer was surprisingly good with animals.

There was a victim who'd been found dead, presumably murdered, and it had something to do with her cat, but they couldn't figure out what. So Lucifer took it upon himself to care for the cat, who really only seemed docile in his arms. With anyone but the blind angel, the cat hissed, bit, clawed at them. Until, of course, Maze came into the precinct and petted him, and he purred, to the surprise of everyone. Maze and Lucifer loved the sound. Everyone else said it sounded like a chainsaw.

They called him Hellcat.

(That wasn't an exaggeration. Hellcats are only docile in the arms of demons or Fallen angels. A simple scratch or bite on a human, if not treated, could get you killed.

But Maze loved Hellcats. She owned one, back in Hell. Earthcats didn't have the same feral nature of Hellcats.)

The cat pawed at Lucifer's face, curious about the scarf and why it was on him, but Lucifer descended the paw, and unlike Earthcats, the Hellcat understood and didn't keep pawing at the scarf.

He got back to work, leaving Maze to watch over the Hellcat.

(Hellcat was being happily watched over by Maze, petting him while he lay in her lap. Trixie got back from school and was curious about petting the cat, but, warned that she would be scratched or bitten (which would kill her), if she tried, she refrained.)

Obviously, the case turned cold. The cat was responsible for the death. Hellcats have the same capacity for immortality as Celestials, so Lucifer flew him down to Hell where he could be happy.

~?~

Chocolate cake containers were becoming commonplace. Trixie was getting Lucifer addicted too.

(_Great_, Chloe thought sarcastically._ Two cake addicts._)

But it _was_ getting him to smoke less. (He claimed it didn't affect his lungs in any way, which Maze attested to, so Chloe just shrugged and let them live in that delusion, but smoking around Trixie was not good and she wouldn't stand for it, not the most because Trixie turned up her nose and told Lucifer to his face that he stinks. Replacing one addictive consumption habit with another less-negative one is one of the best methods for dealing with withdrawl, but at least Trixie wouldn't be affected negatively by Lucifer's sugar consumption if he ate cake around her.

Oh. There are six chocolate cakes - not slices, cakes - in the fridge, half marked 'BEATRIX'.

_I take that back._)

~?~

Lucifer fought surprisingly well for a blind man.

Generally, they didn't learn how to fight. Even martial arts for the blind was more meditation than actual fighting. But no, he could handle himself really well on cases, and even once razed through an entire group of people wielding guns with nothing but a sword to reach a knocked-out and kidnapped Dan. (Chloe wasn't there, but she did see the security footage. Ella could only scratch her head and wonder how Lucifer didn't get a scratch on him.)

(Thermal imaging and seismic imaging, but especially sonar in these modern times, was more than useful for combat. Maze was always the better weapons user, but only Amenadiel could best him in hand-to-hand personal combat.)

Protecting Trixie tended to bring out a more feral side to Lucifer and Maze, especially since they knew she didn't carry weapons beyond Maze's practice blade, which was dulled so she wouldn't accidentally hurt herself. A vengeful bunch of criminals had escaped from prison and chose to go after Lucifer's weak spots: his humanity. (Because that worked out so well for the last guy with the sword wound in his stomach.)

Finding Maze still punching and kicking the moaning and bloody bodies into oblivion was a bit jarring for Amenadiel. He almost stopped her, but a one-sentence explanation ("They were here for Trixie.") was enough for him to grit his teeth.

(He joined her. Those bastards going after his Clutch-daughter didn't survive long.

Later, he thanked Lucifer. He'd gone out to her school early to pick her up, and they got ice cream together, walking and smiling and shoving ice cream into each other's faces, and took her to the movie theater directly afterwards for a kid's movie (old ladies commented on how cute they looked so she didn't have to see the men begging for mercy.)

~?~

Lucifer didn't celebrate petty human holidays, but he did respect his Clutch enough to attend Thanksgiving with them.

(Not Christmas. He and Maze both had standing promises to themselves not to celebrate Christmas. Ever.)

Charlotte was a bit out of place. In a Clutch where she wasn't that known, and she was married to Lucifer's father for a while (apparently). Thankfully, she held a pretty good opinion among the Clutch, especially in Dan's eyes; Lucifer attested that she couldn't stand his distant attitude toward his children, and she'd left him because of this.

Really, Ella was the only one there not related by blood or marriage, but she was still considered Clutch.

(Lucifer had loose definitions of family. Azrael, Amenadiel, and his baby were family. Their father was not. At least Amenadiel visited him sometimes in Hell, and Azrael met him at the Gates sometimes to deliver souls and give hugs. His Clutch was his second family, a mishmash of blood and familial relations crisscrossing everywhere. Charlotte, his ex-(step)mother, married to Dan, who divorced Chloe, who had an offspring together, and that offspring basically adopted Maze. His sister-in-law was his therapist and his little nephew was the child of a millennia-old angel and a relatively intelligent human.

Figuring out seats at the table was a bit difficult, but made easier by Lucifer buying a round table, where no Head was present.)

They laughed until Charlotte talked about her amnesia, and started asking Amenadiel about his and Lucifer's father.

Lucifer didn't like talking about Him, and went to cut off his wings again.

The elder Angel watch him as he disappeared into the next room. (They would grow back in about an hour, so he wasn't really worried. His wife would be, though, if he started cutting off his wings at the slightest mention of Dad Almighty.)

"He wasn't the best of fathers, to say the least," Amenadiel said. "You plotted to kill him for quite a while after your divorce, so I don't suggest you meet again."

Charlotte turned her nose down to her plate. "He was really that bad? Plotting to kill him- that's not an exaggeration?"

"No," he said simply. "He neglected and manipulated us for a long time, and Lucy was the first and only one to rebel after seeing what happened. He was nearly killed, you know? Mom was the one to stop that, but He still cut through his eyes. Dad likes to pretend he's above so many things, but He's not. He cut through Lucy's eyes just for protesting the way we were treated, very violently kicked him out of the house, and forbade us from so much as speaking with him. Azrael and I were the only ones who defied us in that regard, and I'm just as ostracized as him now. He really can't do anything to Azzie; her disappearing skills are useful like that. Unfortunately, since there's no biological relation, Dad kept all the kids in the divorce. And also moved to Cornwall Island."

"Well, can I visit them?"

"Only if you want to buy a plane ticket to Nunavut."

Dan swallowed the chicken he had in his mouth. "How do you mean, violently kicked out?"

"Our house had a few stories to it."

"And..." Linda prompted.

"It was a miracle Lucy didn't break any bones," Amenadiel simply said, feeling a bit nauseous at the memory.

The table was pale, and everyone was quiet, save Charlie, who kept babbling happily as Amenadiel took over feeding him mushed carrots.

"He's happier now, right?" Ella asked. "Lucifer, I mean. To Hell with his dad."

"Dad isn't going to Hell, ever, unfortunately. Your destination in the afterlife is only affected by your guilt, so If you don't feel guilt, you don't go to Hell, and dad never feels guilt about anything," Amenadiel muttered, "and yes. I can guarantee that Lucy's happy. He loves it here, and he would do anything to protect his Clutch."

Chloe sighed. "Okay, can you explain something?" At Amenadiel's nod, she continued. "You say Clutch, but... What do you mean by that?"

Amenadiel smiled. He almost hadn't realized he'd used that term, so instinctive that it was a habit. "My brother plays with familial terms quite a bit. Family's a name he holds for people related to him by blood that he still likes. I'm _Family_, and so's Azzie, Charlie, and to a certain extent, Mom, which isn't to be confused with blood-family, which is everyone related to us who hasn't so much as spoken with him in the past millennia. _Clutch_ is a term he reserves for people he loves deeply but that aren't related to him, like his close colleagues, Linda, and your offspring."

"Close colleagues are Clutch, as in, the people around the table?" Chloe looked at Dan, Ella, Charlotte, and Maze.

"Yes. Everyone here falls into either Clutch or Family, and he tends to be more protective over his Clutch since he knows you can't protect yourselves as well if you're alone, whereas myself, Azzie, and Charlie are all angels and can return from Heaven without going insane. Frankly, he has more Clutch members than Family, which isn't a bad thing. The majority of our previous household don't like Lucy. In fact, I'd wager that Azzie's the only one left there that loves him, and that's only because she's too young to move away from home."

Amenadiel finally looked up from his babbling baby at the silence. He looked at his wife for help. "I said something wrong again, didn't I?"

(Linda was already more than aware of this. Hearing it come from Amenadiel, that she was also considered Clutch, made her feel warm inside.) "No, dearie. They're in shock. Give them a minute."

"Okay." He handed her Charlie again and went to check up on Lucifer, and Linda went back to feeding Charlie.

(Lucifer came back to the table. His wing scars had already healed over, but the back of his shirt down to his thighs were somewhat bloody. No one mentioned it.

They had a lot of leftovers the next day.)

~0~

Amenadiel burned the discarded wings that night, and let Linda and Charlie sleep on his own softer-than-clouds wings in Chloe's room, only after the reassurance that he didn't at all mind his taking her room. Trixie and Maze slept in the same room for once, and Trixie felt safe knowing anything that wanted to get to her would have to get through Maze and her demon blades first, while Charlotte and Dan slept in Maze's room, ignoring all the weapons and sex toys - it was remarkably peaceful. Chloe, Ella, and Lucifer slept on his bed that night, curled against him. (He felt like a furnace and smelled like chocolate. Their distinct heat signatures were comforting and warm.)

They had waffles the next morning. Waking up with his Clutch at his side, the smell of breakfast, listening to Trixie play patty-cake very slowly with Charlie, who mostly flailed his arms and laughed, the smell of coffee and various expensive teas - he felt lighter than he had in a long time. (Was this the warmth of a sunrise? He'd forgotten the feel.)

He was almost tempted to move them into his penthouse for good. But no, he had enough respect for his Clutch to let them have their privacy.

(Chloe, her offspring, and Maze were enough. Interacting with his Clutch at other moments in the day was enough to ease the ache in his chest.)

~?~

Lucifer wasn't very good at maintaining relationships.

Professional relationships, sure. He'd been keeping those since the beginning of time, and Friends were easy to keep track of. Personal relationships (Clutch and Family) were out of his reach. He'd very seriously been screwed over by his blood-family. It was something of a minor miracle he still trusted and loved Amenadiel or Azrael, after they just stood there and let him Fall.

His Clutch seemed to realize this, and forced him to change bit-by-bit to become better adjusted in human society and help him get past all the hurt his blood-family put him through.

Lucifer respected (loved) all of them more than he could describe, and was often at a loss as to just how to describe it.

So he took shortcuts. He got Trixie all the chocolate cake she wanted (but only every Sunday, just to piss off dad almighty for indulging on the lusts of the eye), stopped stealing Dan's pudding (replaced with a different brand, of course, he didn't want any of his Clutch to die anytime soon, especially when he could have stopped it), got Chloe a few lemon squares and her coffee order each day so she didn't have to, got Maze knives that could very easily be hidden even after a pat-down, accepted Ella's hugs while barely flinching, watched after Charlie so Amenadiel and Linda could get some sleep.

But words often only came to him when he was dying or affected by something traumatising.

They rarely listened during those times, more concerned with him bleeding out on the floor or by whatever personal trauma they knew he was going through.

(That wasn't good for anyone.

People got other people gifts all the time, and the sacrifice of money and time was significant to other people. But he had time in abundance and a bigger bank account than most people of noble linage he knew. The things he did were special to the others, who rarely got those things for themselves, but he always felt inadequate.

Trixie seemed to be the only exception. Her coming to him about her nightmares and devolving into cuddle piles and their chocolate cake nights and helping with her homework as much as he could without his 700+ IQ showing or giving away hints of divinity were ridiculously good bonding material.

If only he could do that with other members of his Clutch. Most are adults and unrelated to him, so if he wasn't careful, they could think he was suggesting something sexual. But, no, that not his intention in the slightest. Companionship and love are all he desires out of this world, and he held love in abundance toward his Clutch and Family, as much as he was at a loss to express it. The lack of knowledge on how to express it, that was his own fault. If the others didn't know he was expressing it, he would blame himself just as much.)

So Lucifer made them dreamcatchers out of his feathers, Blessing them with Divine light as he weaved them by hand.

_Sleep peacefully,_ he prayed. _Dream of the good,_ he wished. _Put the bad out of your minds,_ he said gently, weaving the thread across another peg tightly, to be sure it didn't fall apart. _Wake with peace in your hearts,_ he tied it off, and weaved feathers around the threads into intricate, individual and unique patterns. The feathers and string glowed just bright enough for it to be a suitable nightlight (and he could see it through thermal imaging), but also very truly carried Divine essence in them, and very easily drove away the nightmares, leaving them with gentle dreams and wishes.

(Charlotte and Dan loved the gift. She hadn't slept peacefully since returning from Hell, and neither had Dan, who ended up awake half the time comforting his terrified wife. Maze didn't have dreams in general, but appreciated the sentiment and hung it above the head of her bed anyways. Chloe had been having night terrors lately, and hugged him when he gave her the gift. Ella could never remember her dreams in general, but she loved the way the dreamcatcher made her feel warm. Charlie had stopped waking so often from nightmares or wanting to be held, dreaming of Amenadiel or Linda holding him in his sleep, and only woke for feeding and needing a change, and Amenadiel and Linda therefore got somewhat more peaceful nights as well. The only downside was that Trixie stopped coming to his aid for comfort with her nightmares, which was also an upside, because now the little girl was much more well-rested and energetic.

The girl still somehow slept better on the nights binge-watching the earlier seasons of MLP, though, even though his couch was stiff and his leg/arm/stomach/chest had to be an uncomfortable pillow from all the densely packed musculature.)

It was the best act he could think of. He knew how much humans valued their sleep.

(And then he provided rent money for the next three months, for all of them.)


	6. Interlude: Moving in with Lucifer

Trixie looked under the couch, under the chair, in her box, and on the table, on the floor, next to the carpets, and everywhere else she could think of. For some reason, she also went through the kitchen cupboards, even though she knew there was no logical reason for her red crayon to be there.

"Trixie?" Trixie's mom called out. "It's time for bed. What are you looking for?"

"I can't find my red crayon," Trixie pouted.

Trixie's mom looked at Trixie's drawing. "Well, why can't you use another colour? Like pink, you like pink."

"Mom, I can't use pink."

"Why not?"

"Because Lucifer would look stupid with pink eyes," Trixie said with a 'duh' tone of voice.

"Oh," Trixie's mom said, turning the picture like she didn't know which way was up. "I didn't realize this was Lucifer."

Trixie's mom was so stupid sometimes, of course it was Lucifer.

"Honey, why are you drawing Lucifer's eyes? He always wears a scarf over his eyes, and his eyes are _brown_."

"Because his eyes are sometimes red through his scarf, mommy. When he gets _really_ mad, ya know?"

"He doesn't look really mad in your picture."

"Yeah, but he doesn't have his glamour on all the time, mommy," Trixie argued.

Chloe hummed in agreement. "Anyways, it's a school night and you need to go to sleep, monkey. Put away your crayons."

"But it isn't finished!" the girl protested.

"You can finish it tomorrow," Trixie's mom walked into the kitchen. "No arguments!"

As Trixie put away her crayons, she heard the door open, and quietly close, and there was really only one person who could do that without her mom going to investigate. Trixie lay down on the couch and closed her eyes, feigning sleep, unbothered by the miscellaneous crayons around the table.

Lucifer walked up to the couch, picked her up like she was lighter than a feather, and carried her to bed. She turned her head against Lucifer's chest and kept feigning sleep.

Lucifer was always the only person who would carry her to her room. Her mom would never do it, she would just shake her 'awake' and make her walk, and she would never ask her mom, because she wasn't a baby or anything. But it was still nice. Lucifer probably always knew she was awake anyways, but he still played along, and she wasn't a wuss or anything, but it was nice. Maze usually let her sleep on the couch, and often curled up on the couch with a demon dagger in her hand with the intention to kill anyone who waned to harm her, but Maze always got yelled at for that, especially if it was a school night.

It was a shame Lucifer didn't come around at bedtime really often. He came around at breakfast (and often stole off of Trixie's plate and vice versa) and during the day all the time, but hardly ever at bed time. Maze was gone a lot too, hunting her bounties, just like tonight. She kinda wished the demoness was here, she liked it when Maze read her bedtime stories even though she was old enough to get by without them now.

Lucifer managed to hold her with just one arm as he opened the door, and lay her down to tuck her in.

"Goodnight, Urchin," Lucifer said, and she still didn't know what that meant, but she knew it was always said affectionately. She giggled a bit when he smoothed down her hair and left.

Trixie opened her eye after the door closed, and she wiggled around to get more comfortable, listening for her mom and Lucifer talking. Her mom always sounded a bit more cheerful around Lucifer, and Lucifer's loud voice always got a bit more quiet around mom. At night, it was her favourite lullaby.

~?~

Chloe stretched her arms above her head until she heard a loud pop. She'd spent the entire day going over the paperwork Lucifer was meant to do, and even though Lucifer never did paperwork, she would prefer to avoid another paperwork-organising fiasco.

"That sounded rather painful," Lucifer winced, taking a swig from his flask.

"Felt kinda nice, actually," Chloe admitted as she peered into her cup of green tea.

Lucifer hesitated before setting his mug down and walking around the island. "You should take better care of yourself, Detective," he said, "you creak like an old person sometimes."

"Oh, and you don't?" Chloe riposted. "You're thousands of years old, you're hardly one to remark about age."

Lucifer didn't particularly know why he was in his partner's home, but he liked it far more when he was around the people he cared about. The rooms were warm and colourful, from the drawings on the fridge to the messy crayons all over the living room coffee table, to the knife holes in the walls he knew Maze had gotten in heaps of trouble for, but Trixie still loved to admire. It was obvious Chloe was tired, but she didn't tell him to leave, for whatever reason.

Lucifer chuckled. "Hey, I was born this way."

"I know, and what a tragedy it is that you were born with a five o'clock shadow and demon eyes," Chloe chuckled. No, she didn't really believe Lucifer was a bad person, despite his being the devil. Generally, those things would be considered the antithesis of each other, but Lucifer was capable of guilt, which is what set his apart from the irredeemable villains like Cain.

Lucifer _tsk_ed. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, laying his hands down on her shoulders and started kneading away the tension.

Chloe groaned loudly as Lucifer's hands started working the tension out of her shoulders, and blushed hotly when the sound registered in her mind. She felt like melting; her bones had to be turned to mush and she had to be a puddle on the floor, completely melted and dead, and maybe if she opened her eyes, she would notice if that were true or not, but she feared if she did, somehow he would notice and stop.

"Detective, you're more tense than a piano wire, and I would know," Lucifer exclaimed softly.

Chloe moaned. "Unlike some people, I actually work for a living." She chuckled softly and sighed, leaning into the touch. She hadn't realized exactly how tense her shoulders were until her partner had started working out the knots. She wanted to just flop on the table and fall asleep under his hands (somehow, it felt better than the alternative of going to bed despite the fact that it was warmer and softer), but the circles worked out in her shoulders started waking something else up in her she hadn't felt in a long time, and a different reason for embarrassment skipped through her veins as she put a name to the feeling.

She shivered despite herself; the room felt colder than usual. She needed to get away from her partner before she jumped his bones.

"Detective, are you cold?" Chloe could hear the frown in his voice.

"Hn?"

"You just shivered. You aren't getting sick, are you? You've been eating properly?"

"I- Yes. I'm fine. But," she got to her feet and dusted off the seat of her pants, "I should get to bed."

"You haven't finished your tea," Lucifer pointed out.

Chloe chugged the rest of what was in her mug. "I'm really sorry, Luce, but I'm kinda tired."

Lucifer got the hint immediately. "Right. You should get some rest, then. Good night, Detective."

"Night, Lucifer."

~?~

Trixie plopped down on the swing to eat her pudding, mostly because all the other seats had people in them. She looked over at one of her best friends, Elanor. "Hey, Ellie, what's it like to have two dads and two moms?"

"I dunno," Elanor admitted, peeling her orange. Her parents got divorced when she was a baby because her dad turned out to be gay and her mom got with a woman not long after, but they were still on friendly terms and holidays were never hostile; just a bit awkward sometimes. "I've never not had two dads and moms, so I can't say."

"It's boring," a nearby tree said. Trixie looked up to see Keagan, eating an apple (**like an asshole,** Trixie thought, **praise to CinemaSins**). "They nag at ya to clean your room all the time."

"Well, my_ mom_ does that," Trixie said.

"They cook for you, and help you with your homework," Elanor offered.

"My mom does that too," Trixie said.

"Well, what does it matter that you don't have two parents all the time?" Elanor asked.

"Your mom can't be your dad too," Keagan reasoned.

"I have a dad, but it's mostly my mom, Maze, Lucifer, dad, and Charlotte," Trixie poked at her pudding with her spoon.

"Maze, Lucifer, and Charlotte aren't your family," Keagan said.

"Yes, they are!" Trixie protested. "They look after me when my parents are busy!"

"Then they're your babysitters," Keagan said.

"They play with me," Trixie continued hotly, "and Maze and Lucifer are teaching me to defend myself, and Maze brings me back stuff from the places where she gets her bounties, and Maze and Charlotte read me stories when I go to bed, and they all get me chocolate cake when I'm upset, and medicine when I'm sick, and Charlotte yells at people who're mean to me, and Maze and Lucifer scares people crazy when they're meant to me, and Charlotte lets me play on her phone, and sleep in their houses lots, and Charlotte didn't get mad at me when I accidentally broke her waffle bracelet, and Maze didn't get mad when I cut myself on her demon knife, and Lucifer wrapped up my hand after that, and Lucifer gets me cake lots, and all kinds of stuff!"

"What're you yelling about?" Yume asked.

"Trixie was just telling us how she has, like, three moms and two dads," Keagan said.

Trixie squawked. "Lucifer and Maze aren't my mom and dad!"

"Well, why not?" Elanor asked. "I've got four parents, so it's kinda like you've got five, right?"

"Yeah, but..." Trixie chewed on her lips and shoved another spoonful of pudding in her mouth to buy herself time and thought about her next sentence. "Even if Lucifer was sort of like my dad, he doesn't live with us or anything, and he and my mom aren't... ya know... moms and dads are supposed to kiss and stuff, right?" It had been a while since her mom and dad had a functional relationship with each other, and they hadn't done much beyond hugging, and she knew Lucifer hugged Ella a lot too, but he and Ella weren't together - she'd asked (hoping she didn't have another half-parent to keep track of), and he'd laughed and said no, they were just close friends.

"My parents don't," Keagan frowned.

"I see where you're coming from, though," Yume said. "You want your mom and Lucifer to be a real couple, right?"

Trixie went rigid. That wasn't what she was saying! Not at all! She pictured Lucifer and her mom kissing, and that was just... Yuck!

But picturing her mom kissing anyone other than Lucifer or Maze, or her dad with anyone but Charlotte made an odd weight appear in the pit of her stomach and made her skin feel cold despite her long sleeves and sweater. She swallowed another spoonful of pudding to get rid of it. "Well, what if I do?"

"Well, then, you have to get Lucifer to move in with you," Keagan said.

"But our house isn't big enough for me and mom and Maze _and_ Lucifer!" Trixie protested.

"Then you can move into his house," Yume suggested. "You said there was an entire floor set aside for his house. There should be enough room."

"Yeah, but first you have to get them to go on a date," Jennifer said.

"What for?" Trixie asked, filling her spoon again.

"Well, parents always go on dates before they move in together," Jennifer said.

Trixie shrugged. "I mean, that's what happened with Charlotte and my dad, but Maze just moved in with us." She looked at Elanor for help, seeing as she had almost as many parents as she did. "What should I do? I want Lucifer to move in with us, but my mom said he needs his own space."

"Then he should have his own space," Keagan said, biting into his apple again. "It doesn't make him any less of a dad."

Trixie shrugged. "Charlotte and Lucifer let me sleep over at their house a lot, even on school nights, so I guess they're kinda like Nanny and Poppy."

(Trixie failed to realize that oftentimes the inciting incident to her sleepovers with Lucifer and Charlotte was her father and mother's work schedule coupled with Maze's bounty-hunting job, or her mom was in the hospital and her dad was too busy being everyone's bitch, or circumstances demanded she stay on her own or stay with her dad's girlfriend or her mom's kinda-girlfriend and Maze's old boss. Yes, there were also organised sleepovers, where Charlotte and Lucifer had prepared ahead of time to keep Trixie for the night, but they were more a once-a-month type of thing rather than the more often once-a-week thing that forced Lucifer or Charlotte (often Charlotte, but Lucifer was more attentive) to look after the child.)

"Alright," said Jennifer. "Well, then that arrangement should be okay. Are you not happy with that system?"

Jenifer was all about systems. She was the best girl in the class at math, too. It was really cool. Trixie was the best at art, though.

"No, I'm okay with that system. I just wish it were different sometimes."

"Why?"

"Because I don't see Lucifer every night, and I really like him."

"Okay, so maybe you should ask him if you guys can move in. If he says yes, tell your mom that he said yes and you guys can move in," Elanor said. "If he says no, you have to respect his boundaries."

So the next time Trixie saw Lucifer, she gritted her teeth and asked him. "Lucifer, can me and mommy and Maze move in with you?"

"Of course, offspring," Lucifer answered so automatically she wondered if he'd actually registered the request, until he said his next sentence swiftly afterward. "Do you want to call the movers, or shall I?"

Trixie giggled. "We have to ask mommy, first!"

Trixie's mom was in the next room getting dinner ready. "Ask mommy what," Mom poked her head out to glare that them in the funny mom-glare she did sometimes.

"Do you wanna move in with Lucifer?" Trixie asked, bubbling with glee.

"You have a kitchen with a stove and fridge and microwave and everything, right?" Trixie's mom was half-interrogating Lucifer now.

"Yes."

"Well then, I don't see a problem with it as long as you don't set up sex swings in the living room."

Hey, Trixie remembers when that happened with Maze! Mostly because of the hole that was still in the ceiling from where Trixie's mom ripped it out, the concrete and plaster still leaving a bit of a hole.

"I'll keep the orgy-fests to a minimum, keep the toys away from your munchkin, and soundproof the floor. Everything will be child-appropriate in my penthouse - at least while she's awake and inside the penthouse."

Trixie doesn't know what half those words mean, but they seem to appease her mom, because she giggles and says, "deal."

And that was that.


	7. Leiliel

**Is it weird my most popular story is the one I dislike the most?**

**As in, this one if that wasn't clear.**

**Just why?**

Lucifer slowly walked down the streets of LA so Trixie didn't have to strain herself to keep up with him. The intricate pattern of the scarf around his eyes was very indicative of who he was; common criminals like muggers didn't dare act against him despite his obvious lack of sight and disadvantage at having a child to protect. His Detective's spawn was holding the hand out of his pocket, skipping to keep up with his long strides.

Trixie's backpack jumped with every skip. It was rather empty, save her agenda, math homework, and pencil box. Usually, she got her homework done during recess, but she'd been distracted by her English homework this recess.

Lux was just around the corner. Lucifer had made it so that it was one of the more highly-recognizable buildings, with braille all around the sign. He could read that building from a mile away. He sped up and Trixie started running.

"Go to the penthouse, Hellspawn," Lucifer said. "I'll be joining you in an hour or two."

"Okay, Lucifer!" Trixie said.

Lucifer played a few songs, had about twelve shots, and went back up to the penthouse.

"Bea!" Lucifer called, using the rare affectionate nickname. "Have you finished your homework?"

There wasn't an answer. He extended his senses. Someone of Trixie's height was nowhere in the building.

He shot for his phone and used heat-sense to "see" the different levels of light from his phone - this only worked with nearby light, so he couldn't see sunsets in the sky, but he could feel when the sun was setting. His Uber account hadn't been used and... Neither had the Detective's.

Lux is a bar. Ordering a bar from here happened almost every few minutes, doubling in frequency every time another hour passed. His penthouse was hardly private with the elevator unlocked, and if Beatrice hadn't locked it-

Damn it. If this was a kidnapping... He didn't know what he was going to do, but he was going to get her back before Chloe found out.

~?~

He failed rather quickly.

"Detective, your spawn isn't in our penthouse."

"I'm on my way." Chloe slammed her phone down on the receiver. She darted out the door like all the hounds of Hell were on her heels, throwing her jacket around her shoulders.

"Where are you going?" Dan asked, tossing on his own jacket.

"Lucifer can't find Trixie."

"I'll get Charlotte."

~?~

"Lucifer."

The Lord of the Underworld turned. An eighteen-year-old girl decked out in blue and white fleece and black jeans with fiery red hair in a bun held up by a seemingly harmless pin sat on his coffee table, one leg crossed over the other and crossed arms pushing up her breasts.

"Lilith."

Lilith stood and clasped her hands behind her back in submission. "My Lord, what is going on? The Hellfires have reignited. Hell is in a higher state of chaos than usual."

Lucifer growled at the reminder. "I'm angry. A precious person of mine has been stolen."

Lilith closed her eyes. Mazikeen was too smart for that, and the only other option was a human he'd bonded to. "Who was it this time?"

"Who are you to speak to me in that tone?" Lucifer's eyes narrowed, Hellfire blazing behind them.

"The Queen of Hell, inventor of magic, and the creator of most of your army, mother of all demons, your first lover, and contractually speaking, your wife," Lilith listed.

Lucifer smirked. "And you still can't rid yourself of those glasses," he habitually snarked before snapping back to the reason Lilith was here. "Fetch the Infernal and the Hellhounds. Search for a tiny human called Beatrice Decker. Use the penthouse for scentmarks. The other human who lives here will be back."

Lilith did a few complicated hand movements and slammed her palms on the floor, summoning all of the Infernal in various locations around the continent, all mentally connected to one another, and with basic instructions on who to find and the reason for why: "Lucifer's gone batshit insane again". The Hellhounds all appeared in the Penthouse, picking out several scent markers.

"_**HUNT!**_" came Lilith's command. The Hellhounds howled and crashed through the glass windows and balcony, going off to find Lucifer's human.

Lilith turned to Lucifer with a sigh, suddenly looking five years older. "Lucy, you remember the last time you had a human Clutch. They inevitably die, and you're either forced to punish them for all of eternity, or you're separated from them when they go to Heaven."

"I know," Lucifer said quietly.

"And what happens when one of them gets _murdered_?" Lilith kept ranting. "You always leap into a gigantic, frothing frenzy, and punish the people responsible even if it fucks with everyone else in the process!"

"I do not!" Lucifer denied.

"The disappearance of Atlantis!," she started listing. "The Great fire of Britain! The leaning tower of Piza! The Bermuda Triangle! World War fucking One! And what about Kraken? He's been traumatized for centuries!" Lilith listed.

Lucifer scoffed. "Kraken was always such a baby."

"The Black Plague!," Lilith continued. "The conspiracy theory about aliens and crop circles! Most of Japanese mythos came from when you were angry with the Shogun or the Daimyo! And what about Julius!"

"Julius doesn't count!" Lucifer exclaimed.

"THE VERY FACT THAT YOU'RE EXCLUDING JULIUS FROM THIS LIST PROVES MY POINT! You don't have any impulse control when it comes to people you care about being safe, even if it's to the detriment to literally every other person in the goddamned country!"

"Please don't mention my father when you're telling me off," Lucifer groaned.

"Is there any other way I'm going to get you to listen?" Lilith cocked her hip and crossed her arms. "Lucifer, this always happens. You get too attached, your bad luck leaks all over the place, and your Clutch ends up dead. The only ones who combat this stigma are the ones who aren't affected by it, the direct Divine and the direct Infernal. Just because this little person is the descendant of a Miracle doesn't mean she has the same immunity as her mother. And that's the problem here. You get too attached to normal humans who aren't halflings, and it has to stop."

"Why? Why does it have to stop?" Lucifer groaned. "I'm happy here, Lily. I'm happy not managing the Damned souls and being vilified for all eternity. I'm happy not being aware of every sacrifice made in my name. I'm happy being Fallen, I'm happy with my wings cut off, I'm happy with these humans, and they are my Clutch. You've forgotten what that means."

Lilith's face scrunched up in anger. "You don't know a single thing about me if you think I don't know what Clutch is. I have my own people in Hell, but I'm constantly up here to deal with your idiotic bullshit. You keep having psychotic breakdowns, your humans keep getting kidnapped, the Hellfires keep reigniting. You're working several mortal jobs. You're stretched too thin, and it's having consequences on your mental state, and thus your ability to reign yourself in. You need a better handle on your Stigma, or you're going to get your Clutch killed."

Lucifer exhaled oh-so softly and sat down. "I'd sooner lock myself in one of the doors."

Lilith sat down next to him, careful to avoid touching him. "I know. It's alright, the Hellhounds will find her." She nudged his shoulder. "Don't worry, I can handle the wayward demons and whoever the next stuck-up angel sent to rule. Your kingdom will be safe, and you'll be happy," Lilith said gently, very slowly bringing a hand closer to Lucifer's, giving him every opportunity to pull away. Lucifer readjusted his hand and she stopped, pulling the limb back.

The elevator doors chimed and Chloe and Dan stepped in. Dan paused at the sight of Lilith, but Chloe ignored the red-haired girl to restrain herself from strangling Lucifer. She went up to Lucifer's room, got a pair of handcuffs from his drawers of nightmares, and chained herself to one of the bar stools far away from the couch so she wouldn't squeeze the life out of Lucifer when he answered a question in a way she didn't like before actually starting to ask questions.

"Where's Trixie?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"She isn't here, and I don't know where she is," Lucifer said. "I have the Infernal looking for her."

"Who are the Infernal?" Dan asked.

"My subjects," Lilith and Lucifer said at the same time.

"I rule over them," Lucifer argued.

"I created them!" Lilith riposted. "You haven't been in command for decades, Luce. I'm claiming them!"

"Whatever," Chloe cut off the argument before it got any farther. "What about the Divine? Why can't they help?"

Lilith's nose scrunched up and crossed her arms. "You don't know anything about the cold war, do you?" Lilith rounded angrily on Lucifer. "Luce, you didn't tell her anything at all, did you?"

Lucifer hummed. "No, I didn't."

Lilith made a noise like a squirrel that had been stepped on. She unpinned her hair and immediately put it back in a bun. "She's a Miracle, Lucy! What were you _thinking_? She needs to know about these things if she wants to be one of Them or one of Us!"

"What are you talking about?" Dan asked again, but was ignored.

"How do I get to choose?" Chloe asked.

"NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW!" Lilith and Lucifer screeched.

"The Hellhounds are looking for the little human, and then we have to leave! Why didn't you explain any of this before now?" Lilith asked.

"I thought I'd have more time than this!"

"Well, you don't! Nothing is certain. If she'd died a few days ago, you'd have regretted not giving her the option!"

"No, I wouldn't have! She belongs where she'll go, and that's the end of it."

"WHAT ARE YOU TAlKING ABOUT?"

Dan was, once again, ignored.

Lucifer and Lilith spent the next two minutes just glaring at each other, until Lilith sighed. "Go about your daily lives. When your Spawn is found, Lucifer will contact you." Lilith turned to Lucifer. "In the meantime, you have some documents to draw up. I'll start with the interdimensional extradition papers. Fucking cold war..."

"Speaking of, where's our dear Charlotte?"

"Busy hand-holding some baby interns," Dan answered. "What were you talking about?"

Lilith stretched her arms above her head until her shoulders popped with a sharp _crack_. "I'll leave this one to you, Luce. It's your fault anyways."

Lucifer scratched the back of his head. "Okay, so this'll take a while."

~?~

"You LOST the SCENT?! _How?_" Lucifer growled.

"Either the soul is fizzled," Lilith said simply, still in the blasted mediation pose with a blasted calm air about her, lack of inflection sending little shivers down Chloe's spine, "or the Celestials are interfering."

"So, this is definitely a kidnapping," Chloe spoke so weakly, like she couldn't remember how to speak. She couldn't voice the other option.

Lilith hummed and finally got to her feet, ignoring the results and thoughts of the other Infernal for the moment. "The question is, is this a unified effort or a rogue?"

"I wouldn't put it past one of my siblings. If one of them's recently Fallen, it would make sense they'd want to get back in our Father's favour. They know I'd raise Hell to get her back, and go back to Hell to keep raising her," Lucifer said quietly.

Lilith's eyes softened.

"But that doesn't matter so long as she's missing," Dan growled.

"I know you're feeling helpless, but you shouldn't take it out on Lucifer," Lilith said, twirling a loose lock of hair. "It's not his fault your daughter is missing."

"You're right," Dan said. "It's the Celestials' fault."

"Or regular humans kidnapped her and she was violently murdered," Lilith said bluntly, twirling a lock of hair on her finger. "I'm thinking I should cut my hair. Whaddaya think, Luce?"

"I'm thinking you'd look better if you brushed your hair once in a millenium, and you're also a bitch."

"Noted."

Chloe sat up straighter. "What if we call a truce?"

"How do you mean?" Lucifer asked lazily.

"Between Heaven and Hell."

Lucifer's eyes glowed orange.

Lilith's grew gold and the floor beneath her feet cracked like spiderwebs. The air felt heavier - breathing became a challenge. "Now you listen to me, because I'm not going to say this again. The next time you say something _stupid_, I'll make you regret it. The cold war between Heaven and Hell has been going on for millennia, far out of the comprehensibility of your pathetic, small minds. It's not going to stop because of another pathetic human. We already tried a truce when they kidnapped another of Lucifer's kin, and they double-crossed us and killed him anyways."

"It was a real dick move, ya know?" Lucifer groaned, eyes fading back to normal. "It's why I try not to get attached to humans. I go insane when my own are threatened. When they're killed, it gets worse."

Lilith nodded with an air of understanding. "Not joking. I've see him go from bad to worse. It's neither right now."

Dan sighed. "Alright. So how do we prevent that 'bad', since Trixie's kidnapped and doesn't look like she'll be coming back any time soon?"

Lucifer growled and his wings popped out of his back in exasperation and lack of control. "We don't! If we wanted this to be prevented, we should have prevented our interpersonal relationships entirely!"

A crash filled with shattering glass was heard from the direction of the elevator. Ella's wide eyes were turned in the direction of Lucifer's large white wings, uncaring of the liquid rolling through the cracks in her sneakers.

Lucifer's eyes widened and he popped his wings back into his back.

Lilith looked at Lucifer.

Lucifer looked at Lilith.

"This is on you, bro," Lilith threw up her hands like 'nothing-to-do-with-me'. "You should've told your humans a long time ago."

"And risk Divine Madness?"

Lilith shrugged. "If they freak out at the merest peek at your wings or Face, and then abandon every concept of friendship because you're the devil, were they ever really your friends?"

Ella finally snapped just a bit out of her stupor, and spoke weakly, like she'd just stepped out from a cryogenic freezer. "I swear I'm your friend, and I care about you a lot, but can I please go a bit catatonic? I just found out everything wasn't a metaphor and I think I need to pass out and have a crisis of faith right now."

"Yeah, go ahead," Lilith said with a dismissive hand wave.

Thump. Ella passed out right where she was standing.

"Right, with that out of the way," Lilith said, "this might go on for a day or two. Your spawn'll be fine. Probably. Luce - explain now."

Lilith stretched her arms above her head and crashed on Lucifer's bed.

~?~

"I'm too fucking tired to be dealing with this bullshit," Lilith moaned as she was dragged out of bed. She shook out the tiredness, readjusted her hair clip, and sighed. "'kay. Have at thee."

"Ami's been keeping track of all the celestials he knows deployed here," Lucifer said. "Gabriel, Ariel, Michael, not too unusual. But Leiliel recently descended."

"Don't her wings usually get stuck to her back?" Lilith crossed her arms. "That's why she usually doesn't come back down."

Lucifer winced. "Yeah, getting carried back up to Heaven because your wings are bound by honey is embarrassing."

"Not the point," Chloe interrupted. "Is Leiliel has Trixie, what's her motivation?"

Lilith hummed. "Well, God made it so she could travel back and forth between Heaven and Earth if she had the diadem stone," she said thoughtfully.

"It's a piece of the flaming sword," Lucifer provided. "Leiliel's the angel of life. If she doesn't have it-"

"Hold the phone!" Chloe screamed. "_THAT'S WHY THERE'S BEEN AN UNUSUAL NUMBER OF MISCARRIAGES LATELY?_"

"Lucifer, what the fuck? We're supposed to be kept apprised of what happens when it concerns us!"

Lucifer shrugged. "It's also why suicide rates jumped about twenty percent. She lost the stone a few decades ago, but since it's now in the hand of an angel who isn't her, it's reacting counterintuitively. Especially since the Stone's been paired with Azrael's Blade."

Lilith stopped dead. No breathing, no blinking, no twitches. When she spoke, her voice was low and dangerous. "I'm sorry, could you fucking repeat that, because it sounds like you had the idiocy to pair the physical representations of life and death together with no balancing aspect. I must have misheard, though, because we all know what would happen if _that_ were to happen."

Lucifer sighed. "I know, I know, I'm a moron."

"Erm-"

"No, no, no, no, no, be quiet, flesh bag," Lilith held up a hand. "I need a minute." she took a DEEP breath. "**_LUCIFER YOU FUCKING MORON WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING PAIRING CELESTIAL LIFE AND DEATH ABSOLUTE TOGETHER SO HAPHAZARDLY OH MY FUCK THAT'S WHY THE CHAOS SCALES JUMPED TO TEN THOUSAND INSTEAD OF ITS USUAL EIGHT THOUSAND AND SIX-SIX-SIX POINT THREE WHY THE FUCK HOW THE FUCK NO DON'T ANSWER THAT YOU SACK OF POORLY-PACKAGED BULL SHITTERING TESTICLES THERE IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE NOW FIX YOUR OWN FUCKING MISTAKES AND GET THE CELESTIAL SWORD FRAGMENTS BACK WHERE THEY FUCKING BELONG IS THAT FUCKING CLEAR YOU SHITFUCKER!_**"

The redhead pulled the clip out of her hair, threw it at Lucifer's chest so it bounced off harmlessly, and then stormed off, angry and frazzled, not waiting for the man who was technically her superior to give her an answer. A magic circle appeared under her feet while her back was turned, and she faded to gold sparkles and blue fire.

Chloe blinked and then turned to her best friend. "You deserved that."

"I know."

"Get my kid back."

"I will."

~?~

Chloe was kinda sleeping on Lucifer's bed, cuddling one of Trixie's drawings. She felt inexplicably safe, even with Maze sharpening her daggers with a whetstone and drinking whiskey not three feet away.

Lucifer, on the other hand, was on the computer, systematically calling in every single favour he owed.

'Find Beatrice Espinosa. Photo attached.'

If they were somewhere, those who owed him would find her. They owed him. A lot of them owed him their souls, their jobs, their lives, their romances, their fame, their money, their status...

That was a favour they'd asked for. This was the one he was asking for. They wouldn't back down. They knew what happened to those who backed down.

If she was somewhere on Earth, they would likely be finding her. The Hellhounds, a huge portion of the gangs and underworld degenerates on Earth, several demons, finding one small girl? How hard could it be, when angels didn't pay as much attention to humans' auras as celestials', simply because the metaphorical fire burned duller?

He untied his scarf and rubbed the bridge of his eyebrows, feeling the same burning from so long ago.

That happened sometimes. He never knew why.

But Trixie needed to be found. Chloe deserved to know what happened to Trixie, whatever happened.

Lucifer payed more and more attention to the signs of the telltale itch at the back of his neck. It hadn't flared yet since Amenadiel asked why Lucifer didn't show for their bi-weekly bitching-at Earth's-inconveniences gathering. If Leiliel had Trixie, she wasn't making any demands.

He sighed and rested his head on his desk. His heat sense was getting fuzzy around the edges, and Maze's knife sharpening was becoming oddly melodic instead of it being its usual annoyance.

_Sh-wa-HAA. Sh-wa-HAA. Sh-wa-HAA._

Lucifer stood, collected his shots of pure adrenaline, and injected as many as he could.

He crashed hard about three hours later, and woke to a deathly still Trixie cuddled between Maze and Chloe, a gun on the nightstand and a demon dagger in Maze's hand.

"Wh-" he tried.

"Shush," Maze hissed, making sure Lucifer was quiet so Chloe could sleep. "A human found her. She won't wake up. Decker needs sleep. The kidnapper's in the other room, tied up and naked for your torturing pleasure."

Lucifer smirked and walked into the room wearing his Devil Face.

It didn't faze the untied and towel-wrapped Leiliel for a second.

"What have you done with my human?" he asked.

"Nothing to warrant such a reaction," Leiliel said. "She's simply asleep. She'll wake when I get my stone back."

Lucifer very pointedly kept his senses on her as he closed the door. "So she's in Limbo?"

"Don't be silly. She's dreaming."

"The dream realm? I thought that dimension was charged with Chroma's protection, not yours?"

Her aura got an air of disappointment. "Chroma's living, isn't she? My abilities are only _magnified _by the Stone. I don't need it for my Divine abilities aside from flying. Besides, better than Azarael's, and I could very easily have left her on death's door."

His eyes flared red.

"Mmm, there he is," Leiliel purred. "The angry aspect. Much easier to manipulate."

Lucifer took a deep breath and counted back from ten like Linda taught him. "What do you want?"

"I believe I've made myself clear," the woman's lilting voice said. "Give me the stone, and I'll wake her up."

"And how about I don't, and you still leave?" Lucifer challenged.

Leiliel giggled. "And what happens to your Hellspawn if I do? She's in a coma. She needs-"

"The stone of Life," Lucifer finished for her. "I could give it to her and she'd live."

"Luci, the Stone needs a specific," her hands trailed over his cheekbones with the pause, "_direction_ you're unable to provide. The angel of light does not an angel of life make."

"Nor does an angel of life make an angel of peace, dreams, and colour."

Leiliel shrugged. "She_ is_ in a half-death coma instead of a sleep. Get your facts straight."

"Really? And you're perfect, are you? You managed to get captured easily enough."

"Without the stone, yes, I do tend to make mistakes. But not this one. I smelled you on them. I knew they would take me to you." She slapped him, hard enough to make his head snap to one side. "Uh, huh. Violence, anger, immorality, blah-blah-blah. Tell me where my stone is, so I will kill your clutch one at a time until I find out."

"Now threats?" Lucifer asked shakily, sensing her utter seriousness.

"Hardly any other way to make you pay attention," Leiliel drawled. "Besides. The human is almost nothing to me, and the stone is less than nothing to you. It's a fair trade, don't you think? One angel's trash, and all that."

TRIXIE IS NOT TRASH, his emotions protested. But Lucifer was not the only vengeful angel, and if Leiliel took that as a negative...

Lucifer very softly exhaled. "And what are you going to do with the stone when you have it?"

Leiliel sighed. "Luce, you're being paranoid. I've never used the Stone of Life against you or your demons, just like Azrael never used the Blade of Death, and Amenadiel never used the Aspect of Balance."

"You knew about Am-"

"I'm the angel of life. I can sense when absolute balance is staring me in the face, and when a void of life is in my sister's hands, and the sudden absence of your favourite weapon is pointed out by literally everyone," Leiliel scoffed. "I know you have the medallion, Lucifer. I've been tracking it a while, and it flared just before dropping off the map. The only reason it would do that is if an angel who isn't me was handling it. It's either you or Amenadiel, and from there it's pretty easy to find out who would have insisted on keeping both the medallion of life _and_ the dagger of death. Amenadiel may possess absolute balance, but he's hardly who I'd trust to keep all the Flaming Sword together."

Lucifer's feathers bristled. "I keep the medallion here. With the Blade. But if we separate them, the humans will come for the Dagger. They'll kill themselves in a freaky killing frenzy that'll drive police investigators crazy."

Leiliel sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Well, that would explain why they're together. Lu, they belong in Heaven. Myself and Azrael, we can keep best track of objects that embody our Aspects. And they don't belong on Earth!"

"Then why should they belong in Heaven?" Lucifer challenged.

His sister sighed and stepped out of his personal space. "Fine. If you really want your partner's little thing to suffer..."

"Lucifer!" came Maze's frantic yell.

Lucifer raced outside, to see veins visibly protruding from Trixie's face, like her skin and veins had switched places. Maze was looking for a place to pick her up from, and finally decided the capillaries weren't important and stood Trixie up on the coffee table on her tip-toes while Chloe fretted.

"LEILIEL!" Lucifer screamed.

"LUCIFER!" Leiliel mocked.

"What about the 'thou shall not kill humans' rule, eh?" Lucifer bargained.

"She's not dead," Leiliel said, picking dirt out from under her fingernails. "Only suffering. And slowly being deformed. Besides, I've always been interested to see what a human look like when it's literally turned inside out?"

Lucifer's eyes narrowed. "I'm thinking Father banished the wrong angel."

"I'm not the one who started a rebellion."

"I'm not the one torturing a child."

Leiliel's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to give me the medallion now, or wait until your little human's frothing at the mouth?"

Lucifer sighed. "I'll give you the medallion on the condition that you take the Blade back too, and restore Trixie as she was - veins on the inside of her body, and awake."

Leiliel sighed. "Fine. I'll cede to that. But must I take the Blade?"

"Yes. Humans can't be stuck in Death absolute."

"Why not? Humans die all the time."

"Not this sort of death."

Leiliel sighed.

"You owe me. You kidnapped my clutch-mate."

"No. I borrowed her and called in that favour from long ago to get the Stone. Ya know, the favour with Kracken."

"Bloody Kraken," Lucifer sighed.

"Uh-huh. We're even. So, the medallion? I could always tamper with her internals a bit more..."

Lucifer, without another word, walked over to one of his pillars, punched clean through Italian marble, and retrieved the two celestial objects. Leiliel approached, but was stopped by an outstretched hand. "Not until the spawn is awake and fully healed."

Leiliel snapped her fingers. In less than a second, Trixie's sheet-pale skin reformed around her veins and she was awake. Leiliel held out a hand for the medallion and the Blade.

Lucifer practically threw the objects at her. "Get out."

"With pleasure," she sneered, and got back through a portal under her feet.

Lucifer's eyes snapped over to Trixie. "Are you alright, urchin?"

"Just fine," Trixie said. "What's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing," Chloe said.

~?~

Maze pulled Lucifer aside. "The angels know where we live."

"They always knew that," Lucifer said.

"Yeah, but Leiliel is insane. And your father's been AWOL for millennia. If anyone were to try and take control-"

"They know what would happen. I lost my Gifts. Amenadiel lost his sense of time. They had to have taken the hint by now."

Maze sighed. "Still, be careful."

"I always am," Lucifer said, nose in a glass of alcohol.

Maze held out his scarf to him, happiness radiating off of him.

Lucifer smiled. "Keep it. It looks better on you anyways."

"You don't know what it looks like," Maze riposted.

"I know. Keep it anyways."

Maze watched as Lucifer put down his glass on his piano, and slowly started with a song that made her snort into her own glass of whiskey.

"Isn't your girlfriend blonde?"

"She isn't my girlfriend. Neither of us asked the other out, and we're definitely not having sex. In that respect, brunettes definitely do it better."

Maze snorted all the way to the library, where she saw a red-faced Chloe pick Hamlet out of her daughter's hands.

"Mom!" the girl protested.

"You're too young to be reading erotica!" When her words registered, she continued on a different topic. "God, I can't believe I'm saying that in reference to Shakespeare!" she squinted closer at the crossed-out sentences. "He even wrote the sex scenes in iambic pentameter! What the fuck!"


	8. THIS IS NOT A NEW CHAPTER

**Sorry to disappoint anyone who was expecting a chapter.**

**EVERYONE WHO KEEPS ASKING ME TO CONTINUE, _GO FUCK YOURSELF!_ I WILL UPDATE WHEN I WILL UPDATE WHEN I WILL UPDATE. IF THAT'S NEVER AGAIN, SO FUCKING BE IT! AND IF I HAVE TO DELETE THIS SHITFEST OF A STORY SO I DON'T HAVE TO GET ANOTHER MESSAGE THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN ORGASM IN MY INBOX AGAIN, ALL THE BETTER! 'OOOOOOOOOOOH, PLE_EEEEASSSSEE_EEEE CONTINUEEEE!', FUCK OFF!**

**I understand you want more, but here's the thing: I warned about this on my profile in bold, CAPITALIZED,_ ITALICIZED UNDERLINE_. I WAS AS VISIBLE AS POSSIBLE SPECIFICALLY TO AVOID THIS SORT OF SHITFUCKERY! But I'll repeat it here for clarity: Heckling me for updates will more likely make the update not come, than make me update faster. You want to make me write more? Just go 'that's nice', or OFFER SOME CRITICISM. I LIKE CRITICISM.**

**All seriousness aside, I want to personally thank:**

**MidnightWriter44678: WHO REVIEWED NEARLY EVERY CHAPTER WITH ENCOURAGEMENT AND KIND WORDS, YOU GUYS, THIS IS THE GOOD FUCKING FOOD.**

**Cathy Sullins: WHO NEVER SAID ANYTHING OTHER THAN 'IT'S GOOD, WHICH I LOVE.**

**SandorthienLiza: WHO COMMENTED ON THE MOOD AND SAID SHE LOVED IT. IT'S THAT SIMPLE. AND I LOVE IT.**

**Cloelius Princess: WHO ENCOURAGED ME TO CONTINUE WITHOUT EXPLICITLY SAYING 'PLZ UPDATE', THESE ARE THE MASTERCLASSES, YOU GUYS! ENCOURAGEMENT WITHOUT SUFFOCATION! YOU'RE A LEGEND.**

**sexysorceress3001: WITH CUTE HUMOUR AND POINTING OUT HER FAVOURITE PARTS OF THE CHAPTER, I'M FANGIRLING!**

**Shinobi001: WHO SAID SOME REALLY NICE THINGS ABOUT TRIXIE AND LUCIFER'S RELATIONSHIP.**

**NatalyaShae: WHO EXPLICITLY SAID THAT SHE LIKED THE STORY AND NOTHING ELSE, THIS IS THE GOOD FOOD.**

**and **

**legendaryNOT: ON THE THING I DID WITH SHAKESPEARE, WHICH I APPREACIATE MORE THAN ANYTHING, I WAS WONDERING WHEN THAT WOULD COME UP!**

**You guys are the best reviewers, recurring or not, that a gal could ask for. You make me want to be a better writer. I love you ALL.**


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